


It's a Wonderful-ish Life

by SeraBee



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, F/F, Inspired by It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28216935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeraBee/pseuds/SeraBee
Summary: Charity ruins Chas and Paddy's wedding and, feeling sorry for herself, heads into Hotten to get drunk. When she get's a phone call from Vanessa, it reminds her of just what she's lost and Charity makes a stupid decision. Will a near death experience and a visit from her guardian angel put her back on the path to redemption?
Relationships: Charity Dingle/Vanessa Woodfield
Comments: 30
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on twitter: @vanity_bee
> 
> This is total escapism from the current storyline. Humour me please!

Mortimers was a dive and under any other circumstances, Charity wouldn’t have been caught dead having a drink there. But it was the only pub in Hotten that was open late on Christmas, and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

The small bar was packed from wall to wall with Hotten’s most undesirable; a sardine tin of yellow teeth and BO that mingled with the decades of stale ale that had soaked into every nook and cranny of the place. Thankfully, the majority of the people in there were giving Charity a wide berth – most probably because she was still dressed from head to toe in her best funeral outfit. Nobody knew what to say to a stranger who was grieving after all.

The vodka was cheap and Charity could feel it burning through every inch of her oesophagus every time she polished off a glass, but she didn’t care. With every glass, the events of the day were growing a little fuzzier – a little less tragic. Chas’ parting words as she’d shoved Charity out of the church and slammed the door in her face were growing just a little quieter.

_You’re an embarrassment Charity, to yourself, to your kids, to the family – don’t you get it? Nobody wants you here._

The only thing that had hurt more, had been the way Noah had turned his face away and refused to even acknowledge her existence.

She picked her glass back up, disappointed to find it empty once again, and waved it at the bar tender who sloped over with a smirk.

“Listen lady, don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

Charity squinted hard until the balding, beer-bellied thirty-something came into focus, and snorted.

“Clearly not mate, because you are still ugly,” she slurred, jabbing her glass in his direction to punctuate her words. He snatched it from her hand.

“Listen,” he said, gesturing at her outfit. “You’ve clearly had a rough day, so I’m going to let that one slide, but I think you should just go home and sleep it off already before you do yourself some damage.”

It was almost laughable how the only shred of kindness she’d been shown all day was from a bartender with pit stains on his shirt who probably still lived with his mum. Almost. In fact, it was mostly just pathetic.

“Listen, Norman… can I call you Norman?”

“Well, it’s not my name so…”

“Yeah, but you look like a Norman so… anyway, Norman, I’ll make a deal with you. One more vodka to toast my dead uncle and then I’ll get out of your hair... I mean, your… scalp?”

He rolled his eyes, but with a queue of waiting punters, he seemed to decide against arguing. A few seconds later, another glass of paint stripper was in front of her and Norman had started serving someone who had definitely not gotten a toothbrush or deodorant for Christmas.

She sips the drink slowly, wanting to make it last, because she isn’t nearly drunk enough to go home and face the music.

The vibrating sensation on her bum confuses her for a moment, until she realises that it’s her phone in her back pocket. She wobbles a little as she leans to the side to pull it out, but manages, just about, to stay upright.

She’s surprised to see that there’s a long list of missed calls from Noah, Chas, Marlon and Cain – but not as surprised as she is to see who is calling her. No longer worried about making her drink last, she swallows the remaining vodka in one gulp for a bit of liquid courage, slides off the stool and heads outside to take the call.

“Is this a bum dial then?” she asks, as she steps out into the wintry weather. The sudden drop in temperature seems to send the evenings vodka straight to her head and she finds herself slumping down onto the pavement for a rest.

“Not a bum dial, no,” comes the clipped and clearly angry voice at the other end. “Noah called me.”

Charity rolls her eyes. “Of course he did. Bet he told you all the gory details too didn’t he? About what I’ve done today? And I suppose this is you calling to say that you finally believe I’m the world’s worst mum.”

There’s silence for a while and Charity pulls the phone from her ear to check that Vanessa hasn’t hung up. By the time she puts it back to her ear, Vanessa is talking again.

“You’re acting like the world’s worst mum right now, but that doesn’t mean you are the world’s worst mum. What were you thinking though? Ruining Chas’ wedding like that? How could you?”

The utter disbelief in Vanessa’s voice makes her want to cry. Nobody else had been too surprised by her recent antics. Annoyed, most definitely, but not surprised. Nobody except Vanessa had ever really believed that she could lay that side of herself to rest. That it was nothing more than a disguise that she could fold up and put away without losing anything of herself.

“Well, they didn’t invite me did they…” she mumbles, realising all of a sudden, just how pathetic that excuse sounds now that she’s said it out loud.

“For god’s sake Charity, your kids need you.”

Vanessa sounds thoroughly exasperated, and it suddenly occurs to Charity that the other woman isn’t calling because she wants to, but simply out of some lingering sense of loyalty to Noah.

“Well, I’m going to have to disagree with you on that one,” she insists, scrambling to her feet and starting to make her way towards the car that she’d parked on the other side of the street. “In fact, if they need anyone Ness, they need you.” She ignores the loud sigh that she gets in response. “And you can’t come back because of me, so here’s what I’m going to do…”

It takes a few attempts to unlock the car door, but she finally manages it, sliding into the driver’s seat heavily.

“I’m going to drive home, pack my things and just get out of here. That way, you can come back and be here for Tracy and the kids okay? And you won’t have to worry about bumping into me.”

As the engine kicks into life, the radio starts blasting Christmas songs. Vanessa hears it before she can turn down the volume.

“Are you in the car right now Charity?” Her voice seems suddenly high pitched. “You can’t drive right now Charity, you’re three sheets to the wind! Turn the engine off and phone a taxi. Are you listening to me?”

“Four, maybe five…” Charity whispers, before hanging up and throwing the phone onto the passenger seat.

As if it had been waiting for just this moment, the fine drizzle of rain that had permeated the day suddenly erupted into a downpour. The rain pounded against the windscreen loudly, drowning out the whimpering and snivelling coming from Charity.

Vanessa’s words had been a stark reminder of the last time she had gone off the rails – how her family had been so close to excommunicating her then too. Only, back then, she’d had Vanessa in her corner and Vanessa had fought so hard for her that even Uncle Zak had looked ashamed of himself.

And when Vanessa had thrown her arms around her, after she’d returned home from her near death experience at the hands of an angry farmer and his combine harvester, she’d realised that despite what she’d always been told, sometimes water was just as thick as blood.

Until it hadn’t been. Until Charity had pushed her too far and crossed one line too many.

Putting the car in gear, she ignores the ringing of her phone and Vanessa’s name flashing across the screen and sets off home.

She soon realises that she is far too drunk to be behind the wheel of a car. It takes every ounce of concentration she can muster simply to stay on the right side of the road. She drives through a couple of red lights before she reaches the turn off for the Hotten Bypass, relieved that it’s almost midnight and Christmas Day and she’s the only car on the road.

The bypass is a ten mile stretch of a winding country lane, narrow in places and so poorly lit that Charity’s head lights are the only source of light. Even on full beam, the surrounding darkness of the country is disorientating and Charity finds it harder and harder to focus. More than once, she almost ploughs into the thick hedges that line the road, swerving back into a straight line just in time.

It’s a deer that finally does it. Standing statue still in the middle of the road, it seems to appear out of nowhere, just staring helplessly at her. She has to swerve hard to avoid hitting it and the steering wheel spins out of control, spinning through her fingers.

The car spins several times before coming to a sudden, crunching stop. Charity feels her head propelled forwards until it makes contact with the steering wheel with such force that she wretches and vomits. As she tries to move, twisting slightly to the right so that she can unbuckle her seat belt, the pain in her legs stops her. Looking down, she can see that the dashboard has collapsed down onto the lower half of her body, effectively trapping her. The pain that jolts up her left shin when she wiggles her toes makes her pretty certain that she’s broken at least one bone.

The last thing she thinks as her vision blurs and darkness creeps in, is that everyone will be better off without her.

*************************

When Charity regains consciousness, the first thing she realises is that she is not in the car anymore. Flexing her fingers, she can feel the wet grass and water-logged earth beneath. Opening her eyes, she can see only a sea of stars against the clear, black sky.

The second thing Charity realises, is that she is no longer in pain. She moves every limb just a fraction – just enough to be sure – and there is no pain or discomfort at all. She brings a hand up to her forehead and there is no blood or tenderness, despite the memory of hitting the steering wheel being vividly clear.

The final thing that Charity notices, is that she is not alone. In her peripheral vision, she can see the shape of another person sitting beside her, seemingly waiting patiently for her to wake up. Moving her head to the side, she’s surprised that the world doesn’t swirl out of focus and that her vision is clear. Not only is she unharmed, but she seems to have also made herself undrunk.

The woman – for it is a woman, Charity realises – looks up as Charity turns to face her and smiles. Though Charity is certain that she’s never seen the woman in her life, there is something oddly familiar about the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles.

“You’re awake,” she observes, and her voice makes Charity feel instantly calm.

Tentatively, as if still expecting the pain to return, Charity pushes herself up onto her elbows and looks around. The faint moonlight illuminates the car about ten feet away, wrapped horrifically around a tree and smoke drifting out from beneath the bonnet in mesmerising swirls.

“How did I? Did you? What happened?”

The woman is hardly the body builder type, and Charity can’t for the life of her figure out how such a woman could have the strength to pull her out of the car. The woman smiles at her sympathetically, as if Charity has failed to understand the most basic of things.

“You’re still in the car. Look.” She points again to the car and Charity squints in the darkness until she notices the perfectly still shape of herself, slumped in the driver’s seat. Looking down again at the body she is in control of only makes her more confused. Patting her legs and arms, she feels solid and real.

“What the fuck is going on?” she asks, beginning to get angry at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. “Am I dreaming? Hallucinating? Is this concussion?”

The woman laughs. “It’s none of those things. You’ve been given a chance that very few people get.” When Charity doesn’t reply, but continues to stare at her open-mouthed, the woman continues. “Before you lost consciousness, you were thinking that everyone in your life would be better off if you died.”

Nodding slowly, Charity remembers that exact thought.

“So I’m dead?” she asks.

“No, not yet. You’re just temporarily excused.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Who the fuck are you?”

Charity clambers to her feet, wiping the wet grass from her clothes the best she can.

“I’m your guardian angel, Charity, and I’m here to prove you wrong.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charity's guardian angel shows her what life would be like for her loved ones if she were to die.

The woman had stood up now too and Charity took a long, hard look at the woman who was claiming to be her guardian angel.

She had long dark hair that curled naturally but sat perfectly still on her shoulders, unruffled by the wind. Her eyes were a warm hazel colour, and her skin was blemish free. It was impossible to tell how old she was. She was wearing a pair of faded denim jeans that had somehow resisted being stained by the grass and a loose knit sweater that looked about two sizes too big.

“You’re nuts,” Charity decided out loud and set off walking in the opposite direction, heading for the road. Her life was enough of a mess already without befriending insane women who thought they were messengers of god.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, the other woman was standing in front of her, blocking her path.

“I’m not nuts, and neither are you,” she said calmly.

“Well, one of us must be, because even if I believed in guardian angels – _**which I don’t**_ – I’m pretty certain that I don’t have one.”

Changing direction, Charity carried on walking, leaving the woman behind once again. As she passed the car, she refused to take a closer look at the body slumped over the steering wheel. She was trying her best to believe that this whole situation was a result of concussion and that if she could just get back to the village, everything would go back to normal.

By the time she crawls back up on to the road, the woman is leaning casually against a tree as if she’s been there for hours, just waiting for her.

“How are you doing that?” Charity asked, looking back at the field where she’d left the woman standing.

“I told you, I’m an angel.”

As if to prove her point, the woman stepped behind the tree, disappearing from view before reappearing just behind Charity. Charity shuddered, more convinced than ever that she was having some sort of mental breakdown.

“Alright then, if you’re an angel, why have I never seen you before? There’s been plenty of times in my life when I sure could have used some help.”

She thinks back to the months that she’d been trapped in Bails’ flat – completely alone except for her unborn baby. If she’d ever needed a guardian angel, she’d needed one then.

“Not everyone gets to meet their guardian angel,” the woman explained. “Most of the time we help without you even noticing.”

“Well that’s convenient,” Charity snorted, stepping away from the woman again and peering up and down the road, trying to get her bearings.

“The village is that way,” the woman said helpfully, pointing left.

“Right. Well, it’s been lovely to meet you, but I’m going to go home now and sleep off whatever nightmare this is.”

Turning around to look the woman in her eyes, Charity is surprised to find that she’s already gone. With a sigh, she wraps her arms tight around her own waist for warmth and sets off walking back to the village.

Although the village is miles away, Charity finds herself passing Wishing Well just a few moments later. What’s more, she isn’t really sure how she got there. She remembers setting off walking, but when she tries to recall any other point of her journey, it’s like trying to hold smoke in her hands.

The sky is brighter now and in the far distance, Charity can see the sun rising above the Dales, slowly revealing the details of the village that is sprawled out before her. She’s relieved to see that nothing obvious has changed at all.

It’s warmer too. Unusually warm for December anyway and as she passes the café, she see’s Brenda setting up the outside tables and the sandwich board that is advertising three Easter Cornflake Cakes for the price of two.

“It’s literally Boxing Day Brenda,” she calls as she passes. She can’t stand businesses that start promoting the next holiday the minute one holiday is over. Besides, she’s missed out New Years and Valentines Day.

Brenda looks up, hands on hips and peers up and down the street. With a dreamy smile on her face, she turns back and heads into the café. She hadn’t even looked in Charity’s direction, let alone acknowledged her existence.

“Rude much,” Charity muttered, continuing on to Jacob’s Fold. She guessed that news of her little performance at the church yesterday was now common knowledge and that nobody was in a rush to talk to her. In the case of Brenda, she mused, perhaps that wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

As she reaches Jacob’s Fold, she pats her pockets and realises that she doesn’t have her keys. Trying the handle, she sighs in frustration when she finds it’s locked and knocks a few times before remembering that the kids are still living with Cain up at Butlers.

She’s about to head over to the Woolpack when she notices the woman from earlier is now standing at the end of the short garden path watching her.

“Thought I told you to shove off,” she grunts, but the woman just smiles softly and points towards the window of Jacob’s Fold. Curious, Charity moves over and peers through the window, surprised to see Debbie curled up on the sofa with a mug in her hands.

“Did Chas call her?” she muses out loud.

“She’s been home for months,” the woman explains. “Ever since you died.”

Charity stares at the woman for a moment. For an hallucination, she is certainly persistent, and there’s no doubt that something very strange is going on. Even if Chas had called Debbie, there’s no way that she’d be back already and looking completely at home back in Jacob’s Fold. The warmer weather, brighter morning and Brenda’s sign would also make sense if it was in fact spring. She tries knocking on the window, but Debbie doesn’t even flinch at the noise.

“Nobody can hear you, or see you. In this reality, you died four months ago.”

The effort of ignoring the woman and her story is becoming increasingly difficult and Charity decides that it will be easier to just humour the woman. If anything, it might mean that she can wake up from this nightmare sooner rather than later.

“Alright, so what’s the point of me being here then if I can’t do anything?”

The woman doesn’t answer her. Instead, she turns and looks up the street where the first bus of the morning is pulling away from the bus stop and Noah is making his way back to the house.

His voice reaches her first, and she realises that he’s talking to someone on the phone.

“Nobody is going to find it, I swear. And even if they do, they won’t connect it to us – it’s completely toasted… yes, I swear… stop stressing and get some sleep. I’ll see you later.”

He hangs up the phone as he reaches the door, walking straight past Charity as if she doesn’t even exist.

“Noah, what have you been up to?” she asks suspiciously, but gets no reply.

He opens the door easily, and Charity takes the opportunity to slip inside before he can close it again.

Debbie leaps off the sofa at the sight of him – worry and exhaustion deepening the lines on her forehead.

“Where have you been all night?” she asks accusingly.

“At Tom’s,” he shrugs, hanging up his coat and kicking off his shoes. Debbie isn’t at all convinced by his vague answer.

“Noah, you can’t get in anymore trouble with the police. You’re already on a suspended sentence and you’re eighteen now – if they link anything else to you now, you’ll do serious time.”

Charity watches her son, but his sister’s words seem to be nothing more than pesky flies that buzz around his ears making no sense. It’s a lot to take in. Whatever Noah’s been getting up to, he’s obviously already in enough trouble. The thought of her son having a criminal record makes her blood run cold. He was no angel, but the kid simply wasn’t cut out for a life of crime. He was too honest for his own good for a start, and he’d always hated his mum being involved in anything dodgy.

“We just played some games and had a few beers, stop stressing.”

Debbie moaned and ran her fingers through her hair anxiously.

“Stop stressing? Noah, I’m worried about you. These mates you’re hanging around with are bad news. Do you want to end up in jail?”

Noah has clearly had enough of listening to his sister now though. With a look of anger on his face that Charity has never seen before, he turns on her.

“Well I’d just be following in the family footsteps wouldn’t I? You’ve been inside, so had mum and Cain – even Marlon and Ryan have. And besides Debbie, you’re not mum so why don’t you just get off my back.”

His voice is little more than a growl by the time he’s finished and Debbie winces a little, as if this isn’t the first time she’s seen him lose his temper.

“I’m just worried about you that’s all,” she whispers. “Mum wouldn’t want this life for you. She wanted better for you.”

“If mum had cared one bit about me, she wouldn’t have been driving drunk that night. She’d still be here if she cared, but she didn’t and she’s not so leave me the hell alone Debbie.”

With that, he storms off up the stairs, taking them two at a time until he reaches the landing. A second later, he slams his door so hard that it echoes through the house. Debbie flinches and sighs, tears filling her eyes.

Charity can only watch them helplessly. Two of her children are obviously in so much pain, but there’s nothing she can do to make it better.

“They need me,” she whispers.

“They don’t need the mum that crashed her car into a tree, but yes – they do need you.”

Charity tries to hug her daughter, but if Debbie can feel her arms around her, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she turns away and heads over to the mantelpiece, picking up a framed photograph of herself and Charity that they’d taken the year Debbie had found her.

“Mum, I don’t know what to do,” she said softly to the image in the frame. “I’m trying to keep everyone together, but no matter what I do, we’re all just drifting further and further apart. I wish you were here.”

Charity barely recognises the woman in front of her. Her daughter had always been the toughest one in the family – she’d had to be to cope with Sarah’s illnesses and men like Cameron and Joe, who had tried to break her on more than one occasion. If anything, Charity had expected her death to be a blessing for Debbie – one less grown child to try and keep in line and look after. Instead, here she was, a broken shell of the woman she had once been.

“I don’t understand,” Charity whispers to the woman lingering by her side. “This isn’t like Debbie.”

“She might not have said it very often, but like all daughters, she needs her mum. You might not have always seen eye to eye, but she knew that she could count on you in the end.”

“Well where are Cain and Chas? Why aren’t they helping her?”

The brunette sighs and looks wistfully out of the window towards the Woolpack.

“I think it’s probably better if I show you.”

In the blink of an eye, Charity finds herself standing in the middle of the Woolpack. She guesses that they’ve jumped forwards in time, because Marlon is carrying out hot plates of food to waiting tables and half the village are in for their lunchtime pint.

It takes her a while to get her bearings, but eventually she starts to recognise some of the faces surrounding her. Jimmy and Nicola are bickering as usual at one end of the bar, while Eric, Brenda and Diane hold up the other. Behind the bar, Chas is busy serving but she looks nothing like the Chas that Charity had seen only yesterday at the wedding.

She looks completely worn out – as though she’s aged four years instead of four months. When she thanks a customer for their money, the smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

“What’s up with her?” Charity asks.

“She’s been trying to keep the pub going on her own for months,” the angel replies.

Charity is certain that if she wasn’t seeing Chas with her own eyes, she’d laugh at the suggestion that Chas was struggling to run the pub without her. In fact, she can’t remember a single occasion when Chas has admitted to Charity being of any use whatsoever. If anything, she’d expected very little to change in her absence.

The angel seems to read her thoughts.

“It’s not just the physical work she misses. You were her best friend.”

The door opens then and Paddy walks in with Rhona. With a sigh of relief, Charity watches him approach the bar, certain that at least he would be able to put a smile on her cousin’s face.

Instead, Chas takes one look at him, turns, and walks into the back room, shouting for Marlon to take over as she passes the kitchen. A minute later, Marlon appears, spots Paddy and smiles sadly as he takes his order.

“I don’t understand,” Charity murmurs. “Why would they be avoiding each other?”

As much as she really didn’t understand the attraction, Chas had been crazy about Paddy. Despite all of his flaws and despite the fact that he was a total idiot sometimes, he made her cousin happy. Weaving her way through the tables, Charity rounds the bar and heads into the back. On the way, she can’t quite resist turning on one of the beer taps, which Marlon doesn’t notice for a whole minute, until he’s standing in a puddle of ale.

“What the hell!?” she hears him shout. It turns out that being dead has some perks.

Chas is sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of wine and a glass that is already half empty. It’s unsettling to see – mostly because it would typically be Charity drowning her sorrows in wine while Chas was busy lecturing her about whatever it was that she’d managed to fuck up that week. With the shoe on the other foot, Charity isn’t sure what to do.

Of course, there’s not a lot that she can do, considering there’s no way for Chas to see or hear her.

For the first time in her life, she’s relieved when Marlon appears at the door.

“Hey cuz,” he says tentatively. When Chas doesn’t immediately yell at him, he takes a chance and moves into the room.

“Look, we can’t keep doing this. I’ve got food to cook and well, don’t you think you guys should at least try and be civil? For Eve’s sake at least?”

Chas glares at the lanky chef and Charity giggles as he shrinks back a step towards the door.

“Civil? Marlon, if he hadn’t excluded her from the wedding, she’d never have gone to Hotten to get drunk. She’d still be alive now.”

Charity has to stifle a laugh. As much as she likes the idea of blaming her death on the hapless vet, the notion that he was somehow to blame for her choosing to get behind the wheel of a car whilst severely inebriated was a bit of a stretch – even for Chas.

“I don’t think that’s fair. I mean, you’re the one who kicked her out of the church,” Marlon replies, pre-empting his cousin’s wrath and moving back behind the door. But Chas doesn’t yell, or throw something. Instead she looks down at her hands and takes a shaky breath.

“Don’t you think I know that, Marlon?” Her voice is little more than a whisper. “I can’t even look Debbie or Noah in the eye without hearing myself. I’ll never forgive myself.”

Charity shook her head.

“No Chas, it wasn’t your fault or Paddy’s fault. It was me – my fault.”

“They can’t hear you,” the angel reminded her, bringing a hand to rest softly on Charity’s shoulder. The touch was instantly soothing. “We should go. There’s still more to see.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not Christmas without cheese... prepare yourselves for some sickly sweet fluff.

Again, as if she had merely blinked herself into a new pocket of time and space, Charity opened her eyes and found herself stood in the village graveyard. The spring sunshine was warm on her skin, and clusters of daffodils and daisies grew around the head stones, many of which had been adorned with fresh flowers.

As populated as the place was by the dearly departed, Charity noticed that it was entirely deserted of the living. Looking around for the angel, she found herself entirely alone, with only the graves for company.

She was among friends though, she thought, and felt herself drawn inexplicably to Lisa’s headstone. As always, it was one of the most decorated – not just with flowers, but with an array of ornaments too – mostly pigs – placed by Belle no doubt. Charity found herself smiling fondly at the little shrine, remembering the woman who had once been more of a mother to her than her own mum.

“You can’t see her. Not unless you decide to stay.”

The angel had reappeared, standing shoulder to shoulder with Charity and gazing at Lisa’s grave with a look on her face that Charity could only recognise as regret.

“Were you her guardian angel too?”

A solitary tear rolled quietly down the angel’s cheek as she shook her head mournfully.

“No, but I am grateful to her,” she whispered before seeming to remember herself. With a barely perceptible shudder, she turned to Charity and smiled. “You don’t believe in heaven do you?”

Charity thought back to the dark days of her childhood, when her father’s cruelty and disgust had been her only experience of religion.

“Spare the rod, spoil the child,” she muttered, recalling the way he had whipped her so hard with his belt once that she hadn’t been able to sit down for a week.

Obadiah had loved the Old Testament most of all – though he had also had a soft spot for Revelations. Many times, in a drunken stupor, he would insist that she sit down and listen to him rant about the end of days like a crazed evangelical preacher. She had been threatened with hell so many times, but no matter how much he emphasised the torture and pain of it, she had often wished to be taken there instead of having to endure him for a moment longer.

“You were too strong for him,” the angel spoke, “you had more spirit than he could handle.”

Pushing the memories of her father to one side, Charity turned her focus to the woman beside her, moved by the depth of the emotion on her face. Perhaps, she thought, she had been too hasty to dismiss the woman as a dream.

“Why am I here?” she asked quietly.

Smiling through her own tears, the angel turned to the grave next to Lisa’s where the ground had been more recently disturbed and the grass was still working to reclaim the soil. On the stone, her own name was engraved.

“Charity Dingle. Much loved mother, grandmother, niece and cousin,” she read. “Not daughter though,” she added thoughtfully, “or wife.”

Like Lisa’s grave, her final resting place was clearly well taken care of. A fresh bouquet of wild flowers was arranged lovingly in a small pot, surrounded by laminated works of art that Charity could tell were Moses’ handiwork. She felt grateful that someone had taken the time to preserve his offerings like that – that he was still thinking of her, even after she had all but abandoned him in the last months of her life.

There was something about seeing her own grave that broke down the last barrier of resistance in Charity. If indeed, these things she was being shown were true, then her death had seemed only to bring more pain and suffering to the people she loved. It was clear to her then that it wasn’t her that the family had been pushing away, only the version of herself that she had become after losing Vanessa.

As if summoned by the mere thought of her name, a familiar voice seemed to travel on the wind towards them.

“Moses, Johnny, slow down please – watch where you’re walking!”

At the entrance to the graveyard, Moses ran as fast as he could in Charity’s direction, with Johnny hot on his heels. A few feet behind, Vanessa followed them wearily, pushing a pram. Charity fought the urge to crouch down and open her arms, reminding herself that the boys are not actually running towards her, but to the slab of stone by her side.

They reach it long before Vanessa and sit, cross-legged on either side of her headstone, waiting patiently for her to reach them. In the six months it has been since she last saw both boys, they have already changed so much. Moses is another head taller, his features sharpening a little into those of a young boy rather than an oversized toddler. And Johnny is taller too, though not as tall as his brother.

When Vanessa reaches them, a sob swells in Charity’s chest and lodges painfully in her throat at the sight of her. She looks older too, but only in her eyes – in the way that they linger on the headstone, glassy with tears and paler in colour than Charity’s ever seen them.

“Where’s our pictures mummy?” Johnny asks and Vanessa smiles through her tears at her son. Bending down, she pulls out a new collection of laminated art work from the carry basket beneath the pram. Curious, Charity edges a little closer and peers in. Inside, a wrinkly little scrap of a thing is swaddled in pink blankets and Charity can tell instantly that it’s Tracy and Nate’s baby. The poor thing has Cain’s nose.

“Here you are boys, pass me the old ones and we’ll put them in the memory box when we get home.”

Obediently and carefully, the boys remove the old pictures and hand them back to Vanessa before arranging their new artwork. The pictures are familiar ones – like so many that Charity had stuck to their fridge with magnets in the past. One is a picture of all of them – Charity, Vanessa, Johnny, Moses and Noah – all holding hands outside of a house that is obviously supposed to be Jacob’s Fold. The second picture is of Charity on her own but dressed as a queen with a fancy looking crown on a head of golden curls.

“We’re having lasagne for dinner today,” Johnny says as he sits back to admire his own artwork. For a moment, Charity expects one of the others to reply, before it dawns on her that he is talking to her. “And I learned how to ride my bike without stabilisers yesterday. I went really fast mummy Charity!” He looks back at Vanessa briefly before continuing in a hushed whisper. “Can you look after mummy please? She’s always sad.”

Charity’s chest tightens painfully at the words and she looks back at the woman who had, just months earlier, sent back the engagement ring with a three page letter making it absolutely clear that they were over.

Though Charity couldn’t understand the sadness, more than anything, she wanted to take it away.

“She never stopped loving you,” the angel said. Charity had forgotten that she was there, so captivated had she been by the sight of her youngest sons and Vanessa.

“But she sent back the ring, she said it was over…” Charity insisted.

“She was hurting, but she never stopped loving you. She never stopped hoping that the woman she’d fallen in love with would return.”

The realisation is as sharp and sudden as the swift fall of a guillotine. For months, she had wallowed in her own self-pity, overwhelmed by her own pain at losing Vanessa. Though she had fleetingly regretted causing Vanessa pain, it had been her own heart break that she had sought to wash away with alcohol – her own hardships that she had sought distraction from.

Vanessa watches the boys as they chatter away, happily updating Charity on their latest achievements and exciting news. It’s obvious that she brings them here often and that talking to her is something that the boys are used to doing.

“Didn’t Ross try to take Moses?” Charity asked the angel.

“They share custody. Ross didn’t want Moses to lose Johnny and Vanessa as well as you and they didn’t want to lose him.”

When the boys run out of things to say, they ask if they can go and play. In the corner of the graveyard are a few trees that are perfect for climbing. Vanessa allows it, though she tells them to be careful of the graves as they go. Moses, who had always been more of a handful, nods solemnly and takes his brothers hand as they make their way to the trees – carefully stepping around the graves.

Once alone, Vanessa puts the brakes on the pram firmly and once she’s content that the boys are playing safely and the baby is still fast asleep, she crouches down by Charity’s grave. Her tears run more freely now that she’s alone, her entire body shuddering with the strength of the sobs.

“God I miss you,” she sighs, when the sobs subside. She wipes away the tears with the back of her hand and takes a deep breath.

“Tracy’s doing my head in – keeps saying I need to move on and find someone else. That we were broken up anyway. But I don’t want anyone else Charity. I only want you. I’ve only ever wanted you.”

Charity kneels beside Vanessa, her own heart breaking in time with hers. She longed to wrap her arms around her, to breathe in the smell of her shampoo and feel the softness of her skin against her own. For months, she’d have given anything to hear these words from Vanessa – for even the slightest sign that she still wanted her.

“That’s not her style though is it?” the angel said, clearly able to read Charity’s thoughts. “She clams up like an oyster and it takes a lot of patience to open her up again.”

It was true. And there had been so many times when Charity had just assumed that Vanessa was fine because it was easier. It was hard for her to understand when she had spent her life wearing her heart on her sleeve, never hiding her true feelings for anyone or anything.

Standing up, Charity turns to face the angel.

“Earlier, you said that I could only see Lisa if I choose to stay. Does that mean I can choose to go back?”

“Only if you want to go back for the right reasons,” the angel replied.

Charity looks down at Vanessa again, then over to the trees where Johnny and Moses are clambering onto the lower branches and giggling. Down the road, she imagines Debbie, Noah and Chas, all existing beneath the weight of the pain she had left behind. So much pain that they were being moulded into darker versions of themselves.

“I want to go back. I want to be the mum and cousin and girlfriend that they all deserve.”

“I think that could be arranged.”

The angel smiles, her eyes crinkling and shimmering with joy, and again Charity finds herself recognising the expression, as if somehow she has seen that exact smile before.

“Do I know you?” she asks, unable to shake the uncanny sense of déjà vu. “Have you always been an angel or where you alive once?”

“I once lived,” the angel admits, the smile fading away into a more solemn expression. “It wasn’t a happy life – I suffered more than anyone knew, which is why I have tried so hard to ease as much of your suffering as I have been able.”

The memory of Obadiah and his belt, Bails and his copper mates, Declan and the grave he’d dug for her all flash through Charity’s mind and she scoffs.

“No offence, but you’ve not always been very good at your job then,” she mutters. If the angel is offended, she doesn’t show it.

“I was with you when you gave birth to Debbie alone, I helped you find a way out of that flat and I gave you the strength to fight back when you needed to. You didn’t see me, Charity, but I have always been with you. Always.”

Charity had heard this old chestnut before. The idea that god works in mysterious ways – and it had always seemed like lazy logic to her. And yet, the woman spoke with such sincerity and with a love in her eyes that was so familiar in its intensity that Charity felt herself soften. After all, how could this woman, if she wasn’t a product of Charity’s own subconscious, know so intimately the most painful and frightening moments of her life?

“Well, I survived I guess, so perhaps you haven’t been totally useless.”

“You are a survivor Charity and so strong. Stronger than I ever was, and I am so proud of you. Now, are you ready to go back?”

Charity nodded, taking one last look behind her as Vanessa rounded up the boys and hugged them close to her.

“I’m ready,” she whispered.

The angel slid her hand into Charity’s and it was as if her entire being was suddenly filled with a deep sense of purpose. She felt stronger somehow, as if she could overcome any obstacle that stood in the way of her getting her family back. But the fearlessness she felt was also familiar, and Charity realised then that the angel had held her hand many times before.

“Wait,” she said, turning to look the angel in the eyes. “I never asked you your name.”

With a knowing smile, the angel squeezed Charity’s hand.

“It was Kathleen,” she said.

And then everything went black.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charity wakes up.

If she had to try and describe the sensation of slipping back into your own body, the best she could come up with would be that it’s like getting the feeling back in your arm slowly when you’ve spent the whole night with it tucked under your pillow. The only difference is that in this scenario, that arm is broken and bruised.

In a nut shell – it tingles, and then it hurts.

She wants to open her eyes, but she can’t. It’s as if someone has tied weights to her eyelashes, or glued them shut. So she settles for listening.

She doesn’t need to open her eyes to know that she’s in a hospital bed. The synthetic sheets are scratchy against her skin and a cocktail of far too familiar smells assault her nose, so strong that she can practically taste the anti-bacterial cleaning fluid they use at the back of her throat. And then there’s the sounds – the beeping of machines, the distant background noise of nurses chattering and rushing around.

Charity hates hospitals, especially when she herself is the patient. Even after several days in a shipping container, when she hadn’t been found until she was almost dead from dehydration, she hadn’t gone to the hospital. She hated the fuss and the memories it brought flooding back.

But this time, she didn’t mind at all. In fact, she smiled inwardly as the pain in her head and legs made themselves known, because they reminded her that she was alive. She was alive and she had a chance now to turn things around.

It takes her a while to figure out that she’s not alone, because the person by her bedside, holding her hand in theirs, is perfectly silent and still. She recognises with a shiver of excitement, the thumb that strokes her knuckles and the lips that press against her palm occasionally. There’s an intimacy and a familiarity to the touch that Charity has been missing. She’s sure she’d cry if she could remember how.

Mustering all the strength she can in her weakened state, she squeezes the hand as hard as she can – which is to say, only lightly.

“Shit!” Vanessa cursing is Charity’s new favourite sound and she feels her mouth twitching into a grin. “You’re awake, oh god. Hold on.”

Her hand grows cold then, as she listens to the sound of a chair being scraped back across the floor and a door slamming open.

“Excuse me, it’s Charity Dingle in room 7, she’s awake.”

The room fills with more people then, some with voices she recognises that are further away – perhaps standing at the door – and voices she doesn’t recognise that flutter around her, poking and prodding. She feels herself being risen into a more upright position. They lean her forward with gentle hands and plump her pillow before settling her back.

“Charity, can you hear us?” says a male voice, gruff but kind. “Squeeze my hand if you can.”

The hand that grasps her own is now unfamiliar and calloused, but she squeezes it anyway and the doctor laughs.

“Well guys, I think you got your Christmas miracle,” he shouts to the other people in the room and the last thing she hears before she drifts back to sleep is the cheers and cries of the familiar voices.

The second time she wakes up, it’s easier. She finds out later that they’d given her some very strong drugs that had kept her in a sort of medically induced coma and that once she’d shown those initial signs of consciousness, they’d taken her off them so she could wake up properly.

It takes a few tries to open her eyes and keep them open as her eyes adjust to the brightness of light and colour again. Though it’s a relief to no longer feel as though she’s trapped inside of a bubble that has been stuffed with cotton wool, the various pains in her body are much sharper the second time around, and she grimaces as she turns her head just a fraction.

Vanessa doesn’t notice that she’s awake straight away. She’s tapping away furiously at her phone, her tongue sticking out at the corner of her mouth in concentration. Charity takes the opportunity to simply watch her – because she knows that once Vanessa sees that she’s awake, the gulf that exists between them will stretch out again. She’s not naïve enough to believe that a near death experience, bought on by her own idiocy, will suddenly make Vanessa forgive her.

So instead, she studies carefully the way a few strands of honey blonde hair have escaped from her ponytail and how they flutter and curl around her neck. She counts the freckles on an exposed shoulder, remembering the many times she had traced them with her finger as if Vanessa was just a human shaped dot-to-dot puzzle. At one point, she’d used a pen and ‘discovered’ dozens of constellations that she’d given stupid names. Vanessa was perhaps the first partner she’d ever had where she could honestly say that she knew every inch of her body – every scar, freckle and wrinkle were etched into her memory.

She watched as the tongue was drawn back in to regain moisture before it darted back out to lick her lips – lips that Charity had kissed a thousand times but had never grown tired of. Vanessa’s kisses made her feel powerful and weak at the same time – like she could fly but only because Vanessa was waiting to catch her.

“You’re awake,” Vanessa states and Charity gulps, realising that she’s been caught staring. Averting her eyes, she licks her own lips and finds them cracked and dry.

“Is there water?” she croaks, and the words feel like puffs of dust escaping from her lips.

Vanessa is there immediately, lifting a small white plastic cup of lukewarm water to her parched mouth. Charity drinks as much as she can, swilling the last mouthful around her mouth before she swallows.

“Thanks,” she says, trying out a smile. When Vanessa smiles back, it feels like the world is clicking back into place.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, her eyes sweeping over Charity’s battered and broken body. Charity follows them, noticing the cast on one leg and the brace on the other that’s holding screws in place. Lifting a hand tentatively to her head, she feels the thick bandage and the matted hair beneath.

“Probably not as bad as I look,” she says with a smirk. She wants to laugh at herself, but the pain in her ribs tells her not to push it. And then, because the small talk is too foreign to her, “Why are you here?”

Vanessa sits back down with a sigh, looking at Charity like she wants to kiss her and slap her at the same time.

“Do you want me to go?” she asks provokingly. Vanessa manages to make avoiding difficult questions seem like an art form.

“No,” Charity blurts, and that single syllable speaks volumes. Vanessa nods, a knowing smile twitching at the corners of her mouth as she looks down at her lap.

“I called Chas when I couldn’t get hold of you again, after you hung up on me. She sent Cain out looking for you and called me back when they’d found you,” she explains. “You know, you’re lucky to be alive,” she adds, quieter and with a slight tremor in her voice.

Shame heats Charity’s cheeks and she closes her eyes for a moment.

“I know I am, and I’m sorry.” She takes as deep a breath as her bruised ribs will allow. “Actually, I’m sorry for everything. You deserved so much better.”

Vanessa lifts her head slowly, and Charity catches the flash of pain before it’s hidden by a weak smile.

“I know.”

She drifts in and out of consciousness for the rest of the day, waking for an hour or so whenever a nurse comes round to check her temperature and blood pressure. They poke needles into her at regular intervals, taking blood or hooking up intravenous bags of what she hopes is their best morphine.

There’s someone new in the room every time she wakes. Ross visits with Moses, who cries at the state of her but begs to come home when she’s better.

“Of course you can baba,” she whispers, wishing she could hug him tightly.

Debbie and Sarah visit briefly and Charity can tell that her only daughter is holding back a lecture. She tells her she’s moving back to the village for a while, to make sure that Charity is sorted out and take care of the kids until she’s back on her feet. Charity knows she’ll get an earful as soon as she’s home and on the mend, but she doesn’t mind. In the meantime, she offers her daughter and granddaughter a promise that she’ll do whatever it takes.

Noah lurks near the door, looking like he’s ready to bolt. He’s angry and relieved all at the same time, but when she apologises tearfully and swears that she’s learnt her lesson, he comes and sits on her bed and holds her hand.

“Do you know a lad called Tom?” she asks him.

“Only this total loser in one of my classes at college, we all have a bet on that he won’t last the year without getting himself arrested.”

“Well, just you stay away from him. He sounds like a right dick.”

Noah looks puzzled but nods in agreement.

The one constant presence throughout the entire day is Vanessa. Sometimes she pops out to give Charity time with family, but she always comes back. She encourages Charity to stay awake and eat as much as she can. They don’t discuss what it means that she’s there and Charity is happy to leave that painful conversation for a later date.

On the third day, she manages to stay awake for most of the day. Vanessa doesn’t come until the evening, and the relief in Charity’s eyes must be obvious because Vanessa looks smug as she pulls up a chair.

“The nurse says you’ve been behaving yourself,” she says, one eyebrow raised.

Charity knows immediately who Vanessa is talking about. Whilst most of the doctors and nurses are lovely, there’s one who has the bedside manner of a wasps nest and a face that looks like it’s been stuck in one. Charity can’t help but dislike her, and as a result, the woman complains to every member of the family that comes to visit.

“Oh yeah? What’s Nurse Ratched been saying about me now?”

“Just that you’re rude, sarcastic, ungrateful… the usual. I told her she should try living with you.” The easy laughter in Vanessa’s voice wilts as the heaviness of what she’s said hangs between them. Charity smiles softly.

“How’s Johnny doing?” she asks, changing the subject before Vanessa spontaneously combusts.

“Oh, he’s good yeah – wants to come and visit you actually, but I wanted to wait until you were more awake.”

“I miss him,” Charity muses out loud.

“He misses you too.”

Vanessa looks into her eyes then, and Charity knows that they’re not just talking about Johnny.

By day five, Charity is desperate for some fresh air. Debbie and Sarah manage to help her into a special wheelchair that keeps her legs elevated and take her to the hospital gardens. Debbie pushes her while Sarah guides the IV stand.

“No tipping me down the hill,” Charity mutters as Debbie pushes her chair just a little too close to the edge of the path for her liking.

They find a picnic bench that’s as far away as possible from the smokers that are huddled together in the corner, wearing their pyjamas and slippers and pretending not to notice the giant signs that forbid them from smoking on the hospital grounds.

Debbie gives Sarah her card and tells her to go and get them all a drink from the café and Charity knows that the time for small talk and patience is quickly drawing to a close.

“So what the hell have you been playing at mother?” Debbie says, the minute that Sarah is out of earshot. Charity covers her face with her hands and sighs.

“Look Debbie, there’s no excuse for it, I’ve been a nightmare, I know, and I deserve everyone’s anger.”

Debbie stutters a little then, as if she had been expecting Charity to argue with her and had already planned the perfect response. She clearly hadn’t been expecting her mother to fold so quickly.

“Right…” she mumbles instead. “You could have died, you know, if Vanessa hadn’t called Chas and dad hadn’t found you when he did. You would have died out there – and why? Because you were jealous that Chas was getting married and you weren’t?”

“Pathetic isn’t it?” Charity agreed. “But I’m done now. I’m done wallowing in self-pity and I’m done thinking about myself. I know what I need to do now – I need to look after you kids.” Debbie raises an eyebrow and looks pointedly at both of her legs. “When I’m mobile again, obviously.”

Debbie doesn’t look convinced and Charity doesn’t blame her. She doesn’t expect anyone to take her word for it in fact.

“And why this sudden change of heart?”

Charity contemplates telling her daughter about the angel – her mother – and how she’d seen a future without her in it – but she knows her daughter too well. She knows that before she could even finish the story, Debbie would be signing her up for a nice long stay in a padded cell.

“Nearly dying puts thing into perspective I guess,” she said instead, and Debbie nods.

“And what about Vanessa? Are things with her back in perspective now?”

Charity sighs. It isn’t lost on her that despite everything she has done, Vanessa had been at her bedside every day since she’d woken up. There’s no denying either that there’s still a lot of love between them, even if they haven’t gotten around to having a serious discussion about it.

“I hurt her. I need to make things right there too. But not yet. If I get her back, I don’t want it to be because of this and all my drama,” She gestures at her legs. “I want it to be because I’ve proven to her that she can trust me.”

Debbie looks stunned.

“Wow mother, that’s… mature.”

Charity laughs before looking up to greet a returning Sarah who passes her a latte with a self-conscious smile.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter and an extra cheesy happy ending.  
> Merry Christmas everyone!

After a week, when the doctor’s start talking about Charity going home, Vanessa starts to talk about leaving. Johnny, who had been sitting quietly and playing on his tablet is suddenly by their side.

“I don’t want to go back to Granny’s house, I want to stay here and look after mummy Charity,”

Vanessa winces as he looks at her pleadingly and Charity realises that they can no longer ignore the pink elephant in the room.

“Hey buddy,” she whispers, patting the side of the bed. With a little help from a wary looking Vanessa, he manages to climb up and looks at her expectantly. “You know your mummy has that magic smile that makes people feel better right?” Johnny nods. “Well, when she knew that I was hurt, she knew that her smile was the only thing that would make me better – and it worked.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes and turns away, but not before Charity catches the way her cheeks bloom.

“But you guys can’t stay and that’s my fault okay?”

Johnny looks at her, confused.

“Charity, you don’t have to…” Vanessa begins, but Charity motions for her to let her finish.

“You see kiddo, I did something stupid and it really hurt your mummy’s feelings. I broke her heart a little bit and that made her feel really sad.”

She hears Vanessa’s breath hitch and watches her turn away again.

“Don’t you love mummy anymore?” Johnny asks, looking from one mother to the other and Charity takes a shaky breath because she knows that it’s now or never.

“Johnny, I love your mummy more than I’ve ever loved anybody in my whole entire life. I will never stop loving her. She, and you, are my whole world.”

She pauses and watches his face contort as he tries to make sense of her words. Sneaking a glance at Vanessa, she can see her bottom lip trembling though she’s doing her best not to cry.

“But if you love someone that much, you shouldn’t break their hearts mummy Charity,” Johnny concludes and he looks at her crossly.

“I know Johnnybobs, I know. I was sad and scared and I did something stupid that I will regret for the rest of my life, but you know what happens when someone does a bad thing right?”

He nods proudly. “They have to do a consequence like the naughty step or no sweets.”

She can’t help but smile at his simple view of the world and wishes desperately that she could simply sit on the naughty step for a day and have all of her sins washed away.

“That’s right. But when a grown up does a bad thing, the consequence has to be more serious and that’s why mummy doesn’t want to live in the village anymore. But you can’t blame her, because she didn’t do the stupid thing okay? She needs you because you’re hugs are magic and they can maybe help her broken heart feel a bit better.”

Johnny looks at Vanessa who has given up on trying to hold back the tears. Tentatively, Charity reaches over and wipes some away with her thumb, feeling her own heart break a little when Vanessa shivers at the touch and closes her eyes.

Later, when Debbie has picked up Johnny and taken him back to Jacob’s Fold for his tea, Vanessa falls into a deep silence.

“I can hear you thinking,” Charity smiles, “and I’m sorry if I overstepped with Johnny earlier.”

Vanessa shakes her head slowly, “you didn’t. I’m just wondering if you meant what you said.”

Her voice is quiet and it trembles slightly, with hope perhaps or maybe fear. And Charity can see the pain that she’s caused in her eyes, how vulnerable and broken she is.

“I meant every word. But words are cheap aren’t they? If they were enough, I’d have been able to convince you to come home ages ago.”

Vanessa’s is staring at her lap, and Charity notices that she’s looking at her fingers – at one finger in particular where there’s still a band of slightly paler skin. She massages it gently, as if she’s trying to erase the evidence.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that I love you,” Vanessa begins, “and that I can’t just stop caring about you, no matter how long I stay away. But that doesn’t mean we’re right for each other…”

The hope Charity has been holding onto begins to wilt.

“I remember this one time, when you said we were perfect for each other,” she mumbles, trying desperately to hold back the tears.

“We were,” Vanessa insists, reaching out instinctively and grasping Charity’s hand in her own before she remembers herself and pulls them back. “And I think we could be again… maybe… but the way things have been, the way we’ve both been this year… it’s just all so toxic.”

Charity nods. More than anything, she’d love to pretend that everything had been perfect before Mackenzie and that stupid, regrettable kiss, but she knows that she’s only be lying to herself. Things had been shaky long before then.

“Do you think we can ever fix it?” she asks hopefully.

“I want to believe we can,” Vanessa nods. “But it might take some time.”

“I agree. But I can wait. I’m a very patient woman, you know.”

Vanessa looks at her in complete and utter disbelief. “Just how hard did you hit your head?”

“Oh babe, it’s not the concussion talking. But I may have had a little help in seeing sense.”

Charity explains then, about the guardian angel and her glimpse of a future in which she had died. She leaves out some of the more unbelievable details, not wanting to bombard Vanessa with too much all at once. Regardless, by the time she’s finished, Vanessa is looking at her as if she’s just grown a second head.

“You’re telling me you saw an angel…” she says slowly, seeming to find each word more ridiculous than the last. “Charity, you’re not even religious!”

“I know, but I swear I saw it all. And maybe it was a really weird coma dream, or maybe it was real, but all I know is that I couldn’t see the point in living without you before this happened and to be honest, the thought of living without you now still hurts, but I know now that I can be a better human being even if I’m alone forever.”

Vanessa seems to consider this surprising turn of events carefully.

“I don’t think you’ll be alone forever,” she says, finally, and Charity scoffs.

“Babe, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t want anyone else but you, and if I can’t have you, then what I’m saying is that I can still be a good mum to the kids.”

Vanessa laughs and shakes her head. “What I meant is that I won’t be gone forever, and while I can’t make any promises, I can tell you that I don’t want anyone else but you either. If you’d have died in that car…”

She’s clearly imagining the world that Charity had seen with her own eyes, and is no more eager to embrace it than she had been. The Vanessa from her vision had given Charity hope that there might still be a chance for them if she returned, and whether the whole thing had been real or a dream, it had at least got that right.

“You’ll come back to the village then?”

Vanessa nods. “I’d been planning to anyway, because Paddy needs me at the vets, but also because it’s my home now. All the people I love live here.”

When she says goodbye for the final time, promising that she'll be back in the village before Tracy's baby is born, she kisses Charity softly on the cheek. And though she can't explain it, or see the logic in it, she can feel in her bones that eventually things would all work out.

_**Christmas 2021** _

Jacob’s Fold had never looked so festive. From the inflatable Santa and the rooftop lights outside to the oversized Christmas tree inside that was at least 75% tinsel, Vanessa had spared no expense on the decorating.

“It’s out first proper Christmas as a family, or at least the first that hasn’t included a surprise wedding or one of us being in hospital.”

Charity had made fun of her being all sappy and sentimental, but the day felt special to her too, mostly because she hadn’t dared hope that it would happen at all. They had both been so wary, Vanessa of being hurt again and Charity of somehow screwing everything up again, that it had taken months for them to even admit to each other that they wanted to try again.

Afterwards though, it had been like the whole world had suddenly stopped spinning and like everything was exactly as it should be. Charity would remember the day she asked Vanessa to move back home forever – she’d been terrified.

“If it’s too soon, if you need more time, I can back off and give you space to think…” She’d been rambling and the minute that it took Vanessa to reply had felt like an eternity. Eventually, when she’d ran out of breath, Vanessa had given her a watery grin and thrown her arms around her.

“We can’t afford to waste any more time thinking,” she’d said before kissing her soundly.

They hadn’t spent a night apart since and that was exactly how Charity liked it.

Even now, Vanessa is too far away, watching over the turkey in the oven while Charity is curled up beneath a blanket on the sofa watching the boys play with their new toys. Even Noah has graced them with his presence, in a manner of speaking, as he flails around behind the sofa with the latest VR system attached to his head.

“Here you are gorgeous,” Vanessa says, passing a steaming mug of coffee to Charity and snapping her from out of her daydream. She smiles up into bright blue eyes and curls her finger slowly until Vanessa leans in and kisses her. It’s chaste and brief, but it’s everything.

“Love you,” she whispers as they pull apart.

“Love you too.”

A fit of giggles from the rug catches their attention and Charity is horrified to see Johnny rolling around on the floor, screeching with laughter and pointing at Moses who has his back to them all and has wrapped his arms around himself while he moves his head from side to side and makes kissing noises.

“Ooooh Charity I looooove you,” he says in a high pitched voice and Johnny is almost crying as he laughs so hard that his face is almost purple.

“Moses Dingle, stop that immediately!” Vanessa cries in horror, her cheeks pink with humiliation, but Charity can’t stop the laughter as it bubbles out of her. Soon, she and the kids have tears of laughter running down their faces and even Noah has taken off his headset to find out what all the noise is about. Vanessa is mortified by it all and storms off back to the oven to check on the turkey.

When the moment has passed and the boys are all distracted again, Charity sneaks up behind Vanessa, wraps her arms around her waist and rests her chin on her shoulder.

“Come on babe, it was a little bit funny,” she murmurs as she drops feather light kisses along Vanessa’s jawline. Vanessa huffs defiantly, but soon relaxes back into Charity’s arm.

“Okay, it was a little bit funny, but we shouldn’t encourage him. Imagine if he does that at school, the teacher will think all we do is snog in front of them.” The mere thought of it seems to send a shudder down Vanessa’s spine.

“But babe, we do kiss in front of them all the time,” Charity laughs, squeezing her arms a little tighter around Vanessa to pre-empt her pulling away in protest. Instead, she squirms and turns her body around until she’s facing Charity. Bright blue eyes look up into warm green as she slides her arms around Charity’s neck.

“I suppose we should be grateful that he doesn’t think we’re any weirder than Debbie and Al or Chas and Paddy,” she shrugs.

“Are you kidding? It’s the rest of the world that he thinks is weird. I felt so sorry for the teacher that put a picture of a mum and dad on a power point about family. He wouldn’t sit down and listen to the lesson until she’d added two more mothers.”

They had been asked to come and speak to the head teacher that afternoon, who had apologised to them profusely about the lack of diversity in their school resources and promised them that they were going to update their lesson materials as a matter of urgency. Neither Vanessa or Charity had cared one bit either way, but they’d since taken to calling Moses the little activist of the family and had allowed him an extra flake in his ice cream on the way home from school that day.

“The turkey smells amazing babe,” Charity says, noticing for the first time the delicious aroma coming from the nearby oven. And then, because she’s suddenly overwhelmed by just how perfect everything is, “I love you so much. You do know that right?”

Vanessa blushes a little but doesn’t take her eyes off Charity.

“Of course I know it, but I never get tired of hearing it.”

“You’ll never have to,” Charity promises. “I don’t want you to ever go a day without hearing it.”

Hours later, stuffed from dinner and with the kids playing out on the front with Noah, Charity and Vanessa are snuggled up underneath the blanket watching an old black and white Christmas film in which a bloke loses everything and thinks the world would be better off without him. A guardian angel appears and shows him exactly how rubbish the world would be if he wasn’t in it.

“I can’t believe I’ve never seen this film before,” Charity says, mesmerised by the film. “It’s just like that weird dream I had when I was unconscious after the crash last year.”

Vanessa turns to face her then and runs a finger across Charity’s temple where a faint scar still remains. It reminds her of how close she had come, how close they had all come to losing Charity. How she’d known from the moment that Chas had called her and told her how bad things were, that it was completely pointless even trying to imagine a life in which she didn’t love the other woman. No matter what, they were stuck in each other’s orbits – destined to be pulled together by something stronger than gravity.

“I was so scared,” she whispers, more to herself than to Charity, but it seems to break the spell of the film over the other woman.

“What babe?” Charity asks. Vanessa smiles softly and reaches down the gap between the sofa cushions to pull out a small gift.

“One last present,” she says, and then laughs at the way Charity’s eyes light up like a child’s. They’d already exchanged gifts that morning, but she’d wanted them to be alone when she gave her this one.

It had taken her weeks to pick the right one – dragging Tracy and Rhona from shop to shop until they had narrowed it down to three. Eventually Rhona had made her do ‘Ip Dip Dash’ to get it over with and now she watched as Charity tore through the paper to the velvet box inside.

She looks at Vanessa, eyes widening in disbelief before slowly releasing the catch with a soft click and opening the box to reveal a platinum ring with a diamond cluster. Charity opens her mouth to speak but for once, finds herself completely speechless.

“Charity,” Vanessa said, sitting up a little straighter, “you are the love of my life, which means you are my greatest joy and my greatest obstacle. I’ve never known a love like this before, and for the longest time it scared me – but after everything we’ve faced, I’m done being scared. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, if you’ll have me.”

Charity stares at the ring, dumbstruck by the words that she never thought she’d hear. After a beat, Vanessa seems to remember that she needs to ask the question.

“Charity, will you be my wife?”

All she can do is nod dumbly, as tears begin to roll steadily down her cheeks. Her hands tremble as Vanessa takes the ring from the box and slides it into place.

“God I love you,” Charity says as she reaches up to hold Vanessa’s face, pulling her gently in for a kiss that is definitely not chaste and most definitely isn’t PG.

They break apart suddenly as Charity seems to have an idea. Leaping over the back of the couch, she takes the stairs two at a time, returning a few minutes later with a small brown envelope. Once she’s back in front of Vanessa, she tears it open and shakes the familiar looking ring into the palm of her hand.

The question is silent and Vanessa answers with a smile.


End file.
